Shark chat with Claudia Geib

Lessons from Cape Cod on living with sharks + plant of the week

This week, I got to chat with the fantastic Claudia Geib about her recent story for Nautilus: a deeply-researched and insightful plunge into the return of great white sharks to Cape Cod and what lessons that narrative offers on how to share the sea and land with recovering populations of large predators.

Claudia is a science journalist and editor based on the Cape. She is currently the Sue Palminteri Wildtech Reporting Fellow at Mongabay, where she focuses on the intersection of conservation and technology. Our paths first crossed as classmates in grad school, where her ideas for writing deep-dives on sea life were already brewing, so it was great to read this latest feature on sharks, hear the story behind it, and of course learn more about these fascinating animals from someone who knows a thing or two about them.

Conor: As someone who lives on Cape Cod year round, how have you seen the conversation around great white sharks change in the past few years?

Claudia: At the risk of earning the ire of true Cape Codders, I first have to note that I'm a recent washashore — I started coming here regularly around six years ago when I met my partner, who works for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and moved here full-time three years ago. Over that time, I've found there's a lot of nuance in how locals understand the sharks' presence, which would take a whole additional feature to cover (and I don't think my nerves could take writing). Those with local businesses who are impacted by the sharks' presence, or those who fish and still misunderstand seals as a threat to their livelihoods, have a complicated relationship with our sharks. But I think what has been most interesting and important is that tourists are now aware of great whites too. Groups like the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy have been doing really important education work making sure that nobody can plead ignorance, and that everyone who comes here has the knowledge to use outer Cape beaches safely.

What led you to do a deep dive on this topic for Nautilus? Was there anything that emerged in the reporting that you didn’t expect?

This story feels like one of those that has been lingering in the back of my head for a while now, unarticulated. I have a close friend who grew up in Southern California, who had a similarly waterlogged childhood to mine — except that upbringing included learning to be aware of, and adapt to, the fact that great white sharks are always around. People all along the west coast, and in Florida, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, and many other places have interactions with sharks so much more often than Cape Cod. So it always struck me as odd that here, having a great white simply cruise by a beach in the summer warranted a frantic headline on every local news station. 

After mulling over this for years, I was fortunate to connect with my editor, Brandon Keim, who had come across Christopher Pepin-Neff's research on the social science of human-shark interactions. His findings sparked this deep dive, as they were so unexpected on their own: that exposing people to harmless interactions with sharks reduces their fear; and that the majority of communities who live with these interactions report no significant change (!!) in fear of sharks, or pride in local sharks, before and after an attack.

I had so many amazing and unexpected conversations along the way, but one of the most deeply fascinating was the one I had with Sarah Waries, who founded Shark Spotters in South Africa. She told me that a decade ago, their "get out of the water" alarm (sounded when a shark is seen by mountain-perched spotters) would send everybody packing from the beach; today, beachgoers get out of the water and immediately start to ask when they can go back in. That stunned me, because it anecdotally confirms what Dr. Neff's research suggests. 

While there haven't been human injuries from sharks in Massachusetts waters since 2018 (correct me if I'm wrong), a woman tragically lost her life after a shark attack in Maine this year. Maine is a relative newcomer to the shark conversation (this is their first recorded shark attack in history.) Can we apply any lessons from the Cape to other places with increasing shark presence?

Your statistics are correct, and the attack in Maine was a really surprising piece of reporting this through the summer. It was originally part of the story, but had to be cut for length. Some research suggests that we should expect great whites to continue journeying, hunting, and interacting with humans in unexpected places up through New England — people are noticing them more often as far north as Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. I should note that sharks have likely always hunted up and down this coast, and some of this is because more people are spending more time in outdoor recreation, and have cell phones and cameras to capture the interactions. But climate change, seal populations, and overcrowding on prime feeding grounds off Massachusetts also might play a role — one scientist referred to it as like your favorite secret neighborhood restaurant suddenly becoming too trendy to get a table. Time to start looking elsewhere. 

With all of this in mind, we should probably expect to need these lessons in other places throughout New England. I think they're easily applicable, but hard to grapple with in the social media era. People will, naturally, adapt over time. Yet that adaptation happens in the conversations we have with one another, the programs that local organizations put on, the way kids are raised to respect the wild. Social media and local news is way too headline-focused and of-the moment to capture this, so while we're living in this change, it probably won't feel like anything is shifting until it already has. You can, to an extent, feel that happening here on the Cape -- locals are getting on board with our sharkiness, but the media around us hasn't quite caught up yet.

For me, moving here from the landlocked states, I see some parallels (as well as important differences) to conversations around sharing space with bears and mountain lions (cough cough mountain lion video) as they return to historic parts of their ranges. Many people see this as the way things ought to be, predators resuming key roles in regulating ecosystems. But not everyone's on the same page. With the view from the Cape, is it possible to envision a time where we’ve gotten to a new steady state of sharing the land and sea with predator species?

Connecting the dots between sharks and other big predators like wolves, bears, and mountain lions was one of those "aha!" moments in writing this. We're in this really fascinating piece of a conservation puzzle when it comes to predators, all over the world. So many people say that they want these predators back, whether for their roles in the ecosystem, for their wildlife-viewing potential, or simply in an effort to undo some of the wrongs we humans have done. Yet it's hard to hold onto those sparkly moral and environmental values when your cat gets eaten by a cougar, or your farm's calf taken down by wolves, or if you're watching a shark fin slice through the water twenty feet from where your kid is building a sand castle. These visceral experiences lead to some of the growing pangs of re-introduction, like calling for shark culls or delisting wolves from the Endangered Species list.

The fact of the matter is that modern humans will have to re-learn how to be around these animals to reach that steady state you mention. Part of that is understanding that it's okay to be afraid of these predators — evolution has given you that fear for a reason! — even while acknowledging that the actual odds of being harmed by one of them are very, very slim. Holding those two seemingly contradictory facts in our minds simultaneously is hard for humans; we're garbage at understanding how statistics work in the real world. I've started open-water swimming over the last two years, and even with everything I've learned about shark attacks, this sort of "fearful mindfulness" is something I have to work on every single time I get into the water. 

You write that "when it comes to coexisting with sharks, what Cape Cod may need is akin to exposure therapy." That strikes me as a wise observation. But if one tries to speed up this exposure therapy, one finds it's still pretty hard to see a white shark. I sure haven’t. Like you did in your story, I visited a spot where seals congregate, Chatham harbor. Bupkes, re: sharks. Anyway, how do you see this exposure therapy playing out in the coming years?

This is a great question, and makes me think of something brought up by one of my favorite scientists to talk to, Catherine MacDonald of the Miami Field School. She referenced the increase in videos from drones that incite shock and surprise when they show sharks swimming just off crowded swimming beaches. Catherine explained that these videos show that humans actually do have regular interactions with sharks, but because the sharks mind their own business, we simply don't know they're happening. 

As much as I, like you, would love to see an epic surface-clearing leap from a shark in the wild, I think how this exposure therapy really happens (and in fact, how it's most effective) is when we have these little dawnings of awareness, slowly over time. A great place to start is the fact that every outer Cape beach now has a purple shark flag flying at all times: a visual reminder that these animals are out there. As I hinted in a previous question, what I really think needs to happen next is a shift in the way local media covers these sharks. Right now we get a frenzied report every time a shark swims by, loaded with language that suggests the shark has some nefarious intent: think every headline like "SHARK STALKS LOCAL BEACH," or when reporters say that a shark is "lurking" around. I'd love to see the tone shift to the awe, excitement, and fascination that these animals deserve when they swim by — maybe it's a pipe dream, but imagine if we made each sighting an opportunity to teach people about ecology, wildlife, and yes, safety, instead of sparking fear. 

People are drawn to shark talk for obvious reasons, but one of the stunning things about the Cape for me is the opportunity to see whales from shore. I'm very grateful to have seen a fin whale and endangered North Atlantic right whales at Race Point Beach in 2020. There have been some promising signs of population recovery in recent years, though species such as the right whale are still at high risk. Are changes in whale presence something that people talk about on the Cape, or does that sort of get drowned out by the shark issue? What do we stand to gain, culturally, if people are able to easily see whales at the beach?

Thank you for bringing up the whales!! Whales and dolphins were my entry point to loving all sea life as a kid, and I think they so often get forgotten around here in the shark media frenzy. The fact that we can see right whales, one of the most endangered whales on the planet, just a few meters from shore in Cape Cod Bay is incredible. Going to look for them is one of my favorite winter/spring pilgrimages. 

I think there's a lot to gain by making people more keenly aware of our whales and of all the marine life we have around here. There's research out there that shows how visiting zoos and aquariums, and seeing wildlife up close, affects the conservation attitudes of young people; I know for me, forcing my parents to take me to the aquarium in every place we traveled to played a huge role in my career path. Seeing these animals in the wild does double-duty, because it also reminds people of the larger ecosystem that they play a vital role in. 

I think that could do a lot to bring the respect and awe we've lost for the ocean. In Western culture, if it's not the source of a tropical beach vacation, the ocean stands mostly as a place where ships sink and sharks attack boats and people get stranded — it's a place to be conquered, or at the very least survived. Yet indigenous people all over the world don't see it that way. For example, I'm working on another story about the environmental planning efforts of an indigenous tribe in the Pacific Northwest, who sigh at having to follow local regulations that require separate spatial plans for land and ocean. They know these spheres are inextricably connected. For me, seeing a right whale a dozen feet away elicits the same deep feeling of connection, and it's one I think anyone could benefit from.

Can the right kind of data help? Do you think it's helping that people see hundreds of near-shore shark detections on the Sharktivity app every summer, while at the same time see relatively few negative interactions between sharks and people?

While talking to people on the beach to report on my Nautilus story, it surprised me to hear just how many people had the Sharktivity app on their phones. I thought it was just something for shark nerds like myself, but it turns out people really are using it as a tool, to gauge how comfortable they feel getting in the water on a particular day. While I wouldn't say it's a perfect tool for that sort of decision-making — after all, it only reports sharks that are seen, or that have been tagged and ping local buoys; plus, sharks can swim pretty far pretty fast — I absolutely think it serves as another channel for that benign exposure therapy we talked about. 

I'm glad you brought up the Sharktivity app, because it also makes me think of another point that I think is important: thanks to technology, there are more ways than ever for people to learn about and engage with ocean life. On my most curmudgeonly days, I feel like people still see the ocean as a vast nothingness, there only to pull fish out of at will and visit for a dip in the summer — as long you don't touch a drop of seaweed while you're in there. But I also see how remote technologies (like EV Nautilus' amazing live under water explorations), and social media (the fact that there are ocean-focused TikTok accounts is just amazing) bring so much more interest and engagement. I'm really encouraged by this, and believe it may help a lot more than my grumpy alter ego cares to admit.

Shark image: Elias Levy (CC BY 2.0)

Plant of the week: Winterberry

Not all hollies keep their leaves year round, it turns out. I learned this the past weekend when I visited Burrage Pond, a cranberry bog restored into a conservation area. Though they had lost their leaves, the bright red berries of winterberry shrubs (Ilex verticillata) brought color to the tan and gray landscape of the surrounding wetland. They were abundant without being domineering.

Had I seen it in summer, I would have also seen that unlike other hollies, its leaves aren’t spiny. The bark and roots have a history of medicinal uses among the Iroquois and other Native Americans. Although the berries are toxic to humans, they’re prized by overwintering birds such as cedar waxwings, bluebirds and robins.

Like a cardinal or bluebird flying out of a hedge, winterberry is one of those sources of primary colors in winter that surprises me and resets my expectations for the season’s palette. Is winter about appreciating muted tones or about the sharp contrast of the bright colors against understated backgrounds? A little of both, probably.

Questions or comments? Send it to the mailbag: possum.notes.substack@gmail.com

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Possum Notes is a weekly newsletter about wildlife and landscapes around where I live. It’s produced on occupied Massachusett and Wampanoag land.